


Rechnoi

by historymiss



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can the Winter Soldier lie? Bucky narrates a mission from his Winter Soldier days in an attempt to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rechnoi

Can the Winter Soldier lie?

That's really two questions you're asking me, isn't it. First one being, is the Winter Soldier identity like a suit of clothes I took off when Steve woke me up, like, does remembering who I am make me Bucky again and can I be that guy, maybe if you, I don't know, you want him again. Or am I good old Bucky Barnes again forever?

Second, you're asking, if he was a separate identity, a robot, created outta convenience and brainwashing and metal arms, could he feel fear?

All lies are told cause you're scared. I should know. I started my career early. First lie I ever told, I think, was to my sister, and I told her I believed in heaven. Ain't such a big deal now, but at the time- hah, I thought the Earth was gonna swallow me.

Anyway, so that's your two questions, and they're good ones, I gotta admit. Ones you need to know the answers to. I got some kind of answer for 'em both, sure. 

It's a story. A mission, I guess. One of the bad ones. 

Understand that I narrate this with a perspective gained from about fifty years and the return of the man that I used to be. Or bits of him, anyway. I talk about the Winter Soldier feeling fear- but I didn't know what fear was, back then. That's not a macho boast or anything. God knows I've got nothing to pretend about. I just plain didn't know how to feel. Things I put together, now… I put them together cause I got the missing bits. Or the glue, I guess, to put 'em back together.

So. The mission. This would have been the Seventies, maybe- I ain't sure. I didn't exactly get given a year when I was woken up. I didn't need to know it, so I wasn't told, any more than you'd tell your gun what year it was. And I didn't care, any more than your gun would. 

So they woke me up. Waking up from the vat ain't pleasant. You retch, and you heave up whatever goop's inside to keep you going while you're floating there like some kinda goddamn fish. Then you wait while they check you over- I saw a horse looked over by the camp vet once, and looking back, it was like that, teeth, turn the head, snap the fingers, make sure the weapon's in good working order. 

The guy who gave me the mission, I didn't know his name. It wasn't always Karpov. This time, untanking me wasn't so much of an event. I was, I suppose, becoming old news around the Department. Still useful, sure. But the joke of Captain America's best friend as the Motherland's top agent? That was growing old. 

It got to be routine. They gave me my gear, sat me in the briefing room and gave me the information I needed. I was to go visit this, uh, I don't know what the exact words are in English, but the translation from Russian is 'science town'. It was like a town built around a special science project. The closes thing I can compare it to is something like Camp Leigh. You got all those people, shipped them out to this purpose built place, and everyone lives and works for this one end. Sometimes it's benign, usually it's something sinister, and every so often something'd go wrong. That's when they sent me. 

I've been to four of these science towns in my time. Rechnoi was the worst.

It was built on a river. I was sent there in the summer, and the heat was almost unbearable. You could smell the water going bad- it was that kind of atmosphere. Later, after I'd been and cleared it out, they dammed it off. I don't think they wanted any of the water getting out. The river ran straight through the town- on the map, it looked peaceful enough, a neat blue line cutting the place in two. In reality, it made the town schizophrenic.

Didn't think I knew that word, did you? 

What I mean is, one side was normal. The shops. The houses. The school. A couple small businesses. You entered the town through the normal bit. I was dropped off just outside the gates from there. Cars were clustered around the checkpoint and I had to climb my way through. All of them were empty. It looked like they'd just been abandoned there, you know. Or maybe like… the drivers had vanished. It was the same story in the streets. I kept coming across things that'd been dropped. Handbags, wallets. A stroller, rolling down the street. In the park, next to these- I dunno, these wire sculptures that were local wildlife or something, I found a whole picnic.

And still, nothing. Rechnoi was silent. Asleep. Or dead. I didn't know which. 

As I got closer to the river, the buildings started getting more industrial. More true to the town's purpose. Once I was over the bridge, that was it. It was all low grey buildings, familiar in form and function. I was where I needed to be. 

I crossed the central courtyard. Someone had tried to pretty it up with flowers, if you can believe. I imagine they're all dead, now, or overgrown. Funny how that's the thing you wonder about. 

Entering the facility didn't take much. It was creepy, how easy getting inside was. The door just… opened under my hand. Not the bionic one. Just the regular. The first two levels- nothing. Nothing but echoes, and empty space, and paperwork I knew better than to read. I wasn't interested anyway.

I made my way further down. God, I hate places like that. They always put me on edge. I think you can guess why. It's not so much how threatening they are, but more- how like home they feel. How the walls close in in a way that's familiar. Maybe one day they'll close for good.

I found it in the main room. What I'd been looking for. 

The scientists of Rechnoi had become something else.

Understand that everything I tell you- It's colouring in. I was a machine. A weapon, a tool. I didn't think, oh, I'm angry. I'm hungry. I didn't feel. I look back and see that's how it must have been, but at the time- emotions aren't useful for the Winter Soldier. 

So understand when I say that I was scared, and I remember being scared- understand what that means.

They crawled- they stuttered- they jittered. Their movements overlapped in a way that was so wrong they barely seemed human any more. Their skin was grey, their hair hanging in brittle hanks. The light oozed around them in a way that hurt to look at. I understood, now, why the streets and the upper levels had been empty. The people of Rechnoi were night dwellers, now. The daylight simply couldn't work with them.

I took one step forward. My foot crunched.

The floor was a carpet of ash and bone.

It took five minutes to clear out the room. I know this based on my own skill evaluations and expectations from previous performances. I do not know how long it really was. Only that I remember it being a lot longer. 

Again, I know you're gonna ask to me- can the Winter Soldier lie? He lies to me even know, when I remember, details clouding and time folding in on itself. I don't think it was ever deliberate. But he does it, all the same.

What else, from there? I had to clear out the town. Check the dark places. I went into the houses. Climbed to the attics, looked out on the town as the day went on and I pulled the trigger, again and again, and made sure that the accident at Rechnoi was wholly, completely fatal- that my mission was fulfilled.

Only I didn't. Not really.

The Winter Soldier is a faithful and useful asset. That's what they said about me on my file. I read it. He will carry out orders to the letter. Well, I can tell you, I didn't. I made it through the houses, but I didn't go into the basements. I went to the school, but I didn't go down into the cellar. I stood on the banks of the river and looked at that black, stinking water- but I didn't dive in.

I didn't do my job. And nobody knew. As dusk fell, I walked out of that town and felt their eyes on my back and knew that there were things alive in there that should not be. But I couldn't face them.

So I walked away, and told them I had done my job. I knew they'd wipe that mission from my head and, impossible as it sounds, I was glad.

So can the Winter Soldier lie? Yeah. He can. He even, on occasion, feel fear. I never found out fully what went on in that silent town on the river. I think, and this is based on what I saw later, than they were experimenting with mutants, and with a local artefact- a legend about 'the hungry ones'. Maybe once I would have been curious. I don't know. These days, I'm happy to let the legend lie.

I still think about the black water of Rechnoi. Remember who you are, Steve said- I wish he hadn't brought that one back.


End file.
